Halloween

As we all know, Maddie is an early to bed, early to rise little girl. So staying up for Halloween is tricky because it gets dark past her bedtime. Add to that the fact that Maddie woke up this morning at 4:30am instead of 6am - and did not fall back asleep - and keeping her awake for the festivities was a very long shot! We decided to dress her up tonight though as we still wanted her to be in her costume and we went outside and had a great time running around with her all dressed up! She hates having anything on her head so we knew that the hood on her costume wouldn't stay on for long, but David was able to catch a few shots of her in full gear! She missed going door-to-door, but she had a ton of fun in her giraffe costume! And she looked so darn cute too! Here are some of our favorite pictures from tonight...










Isn't she just the most beautiful giraffe you've ever seen?!


Happy Halloween!
Nile, David and Maddie the Giraffe

Our Peanut

We have shared our exciting news with everyone, but I realized we never officially announced it here! This April Maddie is going to be a big sister! We are so happy and feel so blessed! We are so incredibly thankful too that we didn't have to go back through the infertility clinic and routines in order to be blessed with this little peanut. Maddie was absolutely worth every appointment, pill, shot, poke and prick it took to get her, but I am very happy that we didn't have to do that all over again! We affectionately named Maddie our "bean" and this little one is known around the West household as our "peanut"!

It's still hard to believe it's real...and how close April is already feeling! Maddie is going to be such an amazing big sister though - I can't wait to see her interact with a little one! At Ms. K's right now too she recently went from being the only one there to having a little 2 month old there with her. So she's getting a lot of great experience being a big sister there too and learning how to softly touch babies, etc. She's also getting used to sharing Ms. K's attention - she really loved having that all to herself!

Maddie is doing really well and has recently learned how to nod her head "yes" and also figured out how to do a somersault all on her own about 2 weeks ago! We are looking into a local gymnastics club that offers classes for little ones. We think she would love having a place to tumble and jump around!

Here are our most recent photos of the little peanut that were taken at the end of my 12th week. I have a checkup appointment on November 4th and then the big gender-telling ultrasound is scheduled for November 29th - I cannot wait! It's so crazy to think that I'm almost to that half way marker!

I know ultrasound photos can be hard to decipher, so hopefully these descriptions will help orient you! In this one, the baby's head is on the left hand side of the picture and the baby is looking up. The white you see extending above it's belly is an arm.

The baby is in the same position in these next two photos too...


Here's a foot!

On this one, the baby's head is still on the left hand side, but it is now looking down instead of up - you can see the whole body though! The round circle underneath the baby's belly is an arm and you can see the legs and feet off on the right hand side. It's so amazing!

We love you!
Nile, David and Soon-To-Be Big Sister Maddie

Fall Festival

We have been having such a great time with Maddie and were excited to really get into the fall season with her! On the weekend of October 9th/10th, we took Maddie to a fall festival at Butler's Orchard, an orchard that's about 20-30 minutes away. The weather was amazing for an outdoor fall trip - I think it wound up being close to 80 degrees! The festival is set up with a huge area with games for the kids, animals and a big pumpkin patch. A lot of the games were geared for kids older than Maddie, but she had a great time seeing the animals, playing in this huge open barn with hay and at the pumpkin patch. Here are some of our favorite photos from that day! There are a lot, but I have such a hard time narrowing down photos of her - they are all so adorable to me!

Watching the chickens and roosters...

And the black pigs...these guys were cute, but there were stink bugs everywhere which mommy did not enjoy!

Having fun with a painted pumpkin...

Her favorite animals were the goats! They were very mellow and friendly and would walk up by the gate so you could easily pet them. So fun!


She had an absolute blast in the barn with hay! There were a lot of older kids running around and jumping off the hay bails (which I'm sure she'll be doing in no time!), but we were able to grab a quiet corner for her to play in and she had so much fun! I think we must've spent at least a half hour in there!






This one just cracks me up! Maddie's expression is so priceless! She was smiling all the way through and then we have someone take a family photo and the stern look is all she gave the camera! I guess we were taking away from the real fun and she wasn't very happy about it!

My sweet baby girl...

Here Maddie is in the pumpkin patch. She loved walking around and wanted to pick up all the pumpkins. She was surprised to find out how heavy they are!


And this is her winning pumpkin! Maddie's first pumpkin!

We love you all!
Nile, David and Maddie